a july jar and a plan to better one's garden

Picured here is a small arrangement of Stokes' aster, a dahlia bloom I didn't feel like staking, one-of-a million black eyed susans in my border, and a few snips from  Spireae thunbergii 'Ogon'. I didn't realize it echoed the colorful illustration on the dish above my sink until I placed them next to each other. 

I spent a long weekend looking at my garden but not doing much of anything productive. We had plans to entertain,  so to get ready (and to get out of the house) I stepped out into the sweaty Saturday morning to cut flowers. I cut tons of stuff. I got lazy and hacked up bushels of black eyed susans that were falling over.  Careless me stripped small coneflowers from stalks that would have looked nice in a pairing with white Blazing Star....but I had to skip the Blazing Star which was growing at the base of a switchgrass clump. Did I say "growing?" I meant contorting.  You see, the switchgrass flops over like fistful of wet spaghetti if the soil is too rich. And that smothering effect is not such a great thing for the sun-loving Blazing Star who was pitifully displaying way too much phototropism and way too  little flower plumage. So much for trying to make everyone happy with good soil.

There is a pretty tight crowd in some spots: hop vines clamber all over a barberry which is hidden by this summer's Queen Anne's Lace. Forty feet down the row, a snowbell styrax may become a myth if I do not prune Mt. Wax Myrtle behind and around her.....I need to find some time to look through my notes and my old plant tags and reinventory my yard and garden in a serious way. If lolling about and daydreaming about my garden were a job, I'd be a Master at it.  Maybe I'll start a Master Lolling program for us gardeners who aren't retired yet and can't take off work to finish a Master Gardener Program. We'll all get together for drinks at each others houses on the weekend and mispronounce scientific names with great abandon. It'll be fun.

wired grass

Here is the creeping bermuda grass that will cross a sidewalk in few weeks if left unchecked. Amazing isn't it? Its growth spurt makes me nervous...After five inches of rain in May and some recent dog days temps-wise, my outdoor chore list is looking more like an emergency plan. After mowing my lawn yesterday, I had to rake the clippings so they wouldn't lay on the ground as pungent, deadly, oxygen-depriving mats; it wasn't fun. I would have much rather been cutting a bouquet or snipping chives. As the mercury rises and the Solstice gets closer, I am also hacking some of my stalkiest (is that a word?) perennials down to size...swamp sunflower? sorry dude, but your 12 foot tower was a little too much last year. We'll see what you do now that you've been forced to bush out a bit at the waist. ....

Later on this week I will post some pictures of my container garden outside of the newly opened Scratch Bakery (111 Orange St., downtown Durham); what leaping bamboo looks like after right after its jailbreak; a great garden/nature blog whose pictures put mine to shame;  some shots of my Great Recession Kitchenette Garden; and a visit to the Sarah Duke Garden terraces- to gawk at a gorgeous staghorn sumac called 'tiger eyes'...But planning on all of that may be too ambitious for this week. I have some weeds to pull too.